For the first time in a long time, approximately 200 schoolteachers in the Cypress School District are working with a contract this week, as the Association of Cypress Teachers have finally ratified the tentative agreement.

“Salary and benefits are settled until the 2023-24 school year,” announced Elizabeth Dunagan, the ACT’s top negotiator, in an email statement after the vote this week.
Teachers have been working without an agreement for the previous and current school year after negotiations between the district and the teacher’s union broke down in May.

“The district is excited to learn that the teachers have just ratified the tentative agreement. The ratification means a lot,” said Dr. Timothy McLellan, Assistant Supt. for Business Services.

“It means that our collective efforts in working with teachers is appreciated,” he said.
McLellan confirmed the new teacher’s agreement includes a 3% retroactive salary increase for 2021-22, and a 6% salary increase for the current 2022-23 school year.

“We will be presenting the tentative agreement to our Board of Trustees for their final approval at their next meeting on Oct. 13,” he said.

“Once approved, the district will work to process retro payments to all teachers before the end of the year,” he noted. “Given today’s inflationary pressures on everyone, we’re excited this agreement is made possible for our teachers.”

Should the district approve the new agreement as expected, teachers within the district can now expect extra checks before Christmas to reflect the retroactive amounts due per the new agreement.

For the first time since the district was formed more than 100 years ago, teacher’s union within the elementary school district failed to reach an agreement with the district.
When it became obvious the district would not improve their offer and teachers would not back down on their demands, the district declared an “impasse,” triggering a process that required both sides to negotiate through a state mediator.

It took the mediator from the state Public Employee Relations Board only two sessions, one of which lasted two days, to compel an agreement.

Although there are some associated issues that still require minor action, the district’s teacher’s have agreed on what will amount to a 9 percent pay raise, including 3 percent for the previous school year and six percent for the current school year.

She said teachers will go back to the bargaining table in January to address special education, class sizes and work hours, said Dunagan, although she did not elaborate on the related issues.

“We want to make things better for our students,” she said.

And, although teachers overwhelmingly approved the agreement, Elizabeth Dunagan hinted that the process uncovered some issues that is prompting the group to get involved in the fall elections.

“We have three school board seats up for re-election,” said Dunagan in the statement, “two of them with challengers, and ACT is considering an endorsement of candidates for the first time in a few years.”

Dunagan did not specify which endorsements or races they are considering involvement two seats, Trustee Areas B and C are both contested.

In only a second meeting with state mediators, both the Cypress School District and the Association of Cypress Teachers have confirmed that the district and its nearly 200 teachers have finally reached a tentative pay raise settlement.

“Success! A tentative agreement has just been reached,” said Assistant Supt. for Business Services Dr. Timothy McLellan on Fri., Sept. 9.

“I’m happy to announce we have reached a tentative agreement with the district for salary for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years,” said a similar email statement from Elizabeth Dunagan, a teacher and the ACT’s top negotiator.

A five-member team from both sides, the district, and the ACT, have been meeting since January trying to hammer out an agreement for the 2021-22 school year.

“Our final agreement was for 3% retroactive for the 2021-22 school year and another 6% that was effective July 1, 2022,” said Dunagan and confirmed by McLellan.

“This is a total increase of 9% on our salary schedule, which is a step in the right direction to making sure Cypress teachers are compensated comparably to surrounding districts,” she said.

“The goal remains to ensure Cypress School District is able to attract and retain the best possible staff for the children of Cypress,” said Dunagan.

She said that while the agreements were approved by both negotiating sides, it still has to be ratified by the ACT membership of nearly 200. “We will have a general meeting this week and then will vote to ratify after that,” she said.

Further, Dunagan said there are still a few housekeeping items that need cleaning up.

“We will return to the table in a few months to address some ongoing concerns regarding working conditions with the district but anticipate those meetings to be productive and beneficial for our students,” she said.

“We appreciate the efforts of the district negotiating team, as well as the efforts of the mediator, to help both sides find a solution that we can all live with. The support from our community has been amazing and we appreciate them more than I can say,” said Dunagan.
“It might appear otherwise, but we love our teachers,” said McLellan, who said the district was extremely happy with the outcome.

“We agreed to an increase to teacher salaries by 3% for the 2021/22 school year, effective retroactively to July 1, 2021. In addition, we agreed to increase teacher salaries by 6% for the 2022/23 school year, effective retroactively to July 1, 2022,” he said.

“We appreciate our teachers and are excited a mutually acceptable agreement could finally be reached,” the Assistant Superintendent said.

McLellan maintained throughout the negotiations that the 2021 COLA was insufficient to provide the size of the raise the teachers wanted without making other adjustments.

Teachers, in the end, did agree with the three percent (retroactive) for the 2021-22 year. However, they were able to double that for 2022-23, giving teachers just under a 10 percent pay raise going forward.

Both sides believe they got what they needed to keep teachers, keep the district financially in balance and will now focus on improving the educational experience.

Throughout the earlier negotiating sessions, the district refused to offer more than a 3 percent pay raise without altering medical insurance premiums with so-called “CAPS” for some employee families.

The ACT was asking for a 4.75 percent pay raise, with no premium caps, based on last year’s funding increase of 5.07 percent. Basically, the state legislature awards a COLA (cost-of-living-adjustment) to districts.

In short, the district received a more than 5 percent increase across the board for 2021, giving teachers the justification for the 4.75 percent increase.

Given COVID, and a huge state surplus, legislators have signed a massive COLA of 9 percent to school districts for the current year.

In May, the district ended the negotiations for 2021-22, calling for mediation from the Public Employees Relations Board, citing a lack of progress in negotiations. Both the district and its teacher’s union are compelled to accept the power of PERB given to it by the state to mediate any unresolvable disputes.

The group’s first meeting with a mediator from PERB was in July. They did not reach an agreement but agreed to meet again Sept. 8.

Although they were not able to reach an agreement on the first day of their second negotiating session with PERB, they apparently agreed to meet again on Friday morning, after which both sides announced a settlement had finally been reached.